Writing “Genie in a Bottle” for Christina Aguilera — Pam Sheyne

How do you write a song the whole world ends up singing?

  We’re joined by Pam Sheyne, the multi-platinum songwriter behind Christina Aguilera’s breakout hit “Genie in a Bottle,” to talk about what actually happens in the room when a career-defining track comes together, why you can feel you wrote “a good song” and still never predict a smash, and how preparation separates pros from wishful thinking.
 
 We also zoom out to the modern music industry: writing as a chameleon for different artists, doing the homework on vocal range and style, and navigating the subtle politics of helping an artist feel true ownership. Pam shares what she’s seeing through her songwriting camps, including sync licensing sessions built around real briefs and the practical business details that matter, like one-stop clearance and keeping song ownership intact.
 
 Then we get into songwriter rights and advocacy. Pam reflects on her work with SONA and the fight that led to the Music Modernization Act, what streaming royalties exposed, and why conversations about master rights, fair pay, and even healthcare aren’t optional if we want sustainable songwriting careers. We close with a return to artistry through her duo Eva and the healing power of singing, plus grounded advice for anyone trying to build a life in music.
 
 Subscribe, share this with a songwriter friend, and leave a review so more people can find these conversations. 

https://www.instagram.com/pamsheyne/

https://www.songwritercamps.com/

Transcript

Cold Open And Welcome Back

SPEAKER_04 0:03

She creates noise. She creates us. She's a powerful powerful eyes. She creates noise. She creates. She creates noise. She creates noise.

Meet Hitmaker Pam Sheyne

SPEAKER_02 0:22

Hi, and welcome back to She Creates Noise. I'm Sarah Nagurney, songwriter, producer, manager, and your host. And I'm really grateful to be here for season two. And also this is Women's History Month, and it's especially apt that you're here listening. We've had a strong and inspiring first season filled with honest conversations about how real careers are built in this business, the risks, the turning points, and the stamina it takes to stay in the room. Now we're into season two, and the show is growing, the conversations are deepening, and I'm really happy to have you here. Now, as you may know, she creates noise, is about the women who shaped the music industry, executives, producers, songwriters, managers, and artists, all of those who've built lasting careers in a challenging and constantly evolving landscape. This season we're expanding the format with new kinds of conversations, especially having more than one person in the room, which I really enjoyed. For example, the episode with mentor and artist pairings of AC Scott. AC began her singing career in her 60s alongside her mentor and the remarkable AR executive Kate Hyman. We'll have a thoughtful mental health episode featuring industry leader Erica Ramon, who's the manager of Fergie, as well as Kathy Olsen, who's the founder of Hollywood and Mind, as well as a Billboard journalist. We'll sit down with the extraordinary hit songwriters, including Bonnie McKee, who's known for her work with Katy Perry, Pam Shane, co-writer of Genie in a Bottle, and Grammy nominated Laura Veltz, who has worked a lot with Maren Morris, amongst many others. Please check it out. There's so many cool guests coming up. I'm excited for you to hear the stories and hear about craft and leadership and resilience. If you'd like to know more about me and my own journey, you can check out the trailer. Thanks for returning. Thanks for listening. Please share. Welcome back. Thank you. Today we're going to welcome Pam Shane. Now I've known Pam for a number of years. She's a multi-platinum songwriter, producer, artist, and mentor, an Ivory Novello award winner with more than 50 million record sales and over a hundred platinum certifications. She's best known for co-writing Christine Aguilera's breakout hit Genie in a Bottle. And her songs have been recorded by artists including Miley Cyrus, Camilla Cabello, Demi Lovato, Seal, and The Backstreet Boys. Her film and TV work includes The Princess Diaries, Disney Camp Rock, and Hannah Montana. And that's probably not all. So she's pretty amazing. As a vocalist, she has collaborated with and toured with Elton John, Celine Dion, Cindy Lauper, and Daryl Hall, and is currently recording with her duo project, Eva, alongside Sarah Bethany. Pam is co-founder of Songwriter Camps, launched in 2018 with collaborator Richard Harris, offering an in-person and virtual workshops focused on songwriting, craft, and sync. She's also a co-founding member of Sona, Songwriters of North North America, the advocacy organization that was instrumental in passing the Music Modernization Act in 2018. I want to welcome Pam today. Thank you so much for joining us.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

CPA Snoy.

New Zealand Roots And London Leap

SPEAKER_02 3:34

We were just chatting about how you were just Grammy nominated and no one told you this year. That's historian. Hi, Sarah. Great to be here. And thanks, uh, thanks for having me on. I'm so glad you're here. Just a little bit about your origin story. Uh you were born in New Zealand and went on to build a truly global career. Do you think growing up slightly outside the traditional pop power centers gave you a different perspective? Uh, maybe more of an observer's lens?

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Gosh, well, New Zealand is kind of, you know, a little sheltered down there in the 60s. And I was the youngest child of three, and my parents loved music and loved socializing, and uh they listened to a lot of a lot of different types of music, but uh country music was very much a big thing then. Uh artists like Dolly Parton, Tammy Wynette, Charlie Pride, Crystal Gale was one of the first records I ever bought. So I guess my sort of initiation into music was, you know, these wonderful melodies and storylines and uh sort of depth of emotion. You know, those country writers really knew how to connect with the audience. Right. So early on you were listening to a lot of country music? Listened to a lot of country music, and then the sort of first pop record that really caught my ear was ABBA, ABBA's first record. I was just completely um, completely hooked. Hooked by their amazing hooks. Their melodies were really, you know, the Swedes definitely know how to write a good melody. That was a big thing. And I I lost my father uh when I was 15 years old. He passed suddenly. So music became my my hiding place, my sacred place. That's kind of where I went very inward, and music was just with me all the time. So I learned a lot, listened a lot to lots of different types of artists, and uh it wasn't until I moved to London when I was 17 that I started listening to a lot of different music, black music in particular, Luther Van Dross and Stevie Wander and Earth, Wind and Fire. Did you move to London with your family? No, I moved, well, my sister and my brother lived there, and I stayed with my sister for a month. I was only 17, and then I got a I got a residency, a job in a hotel band. Wow. All on my own. Yeah, it was uh supporting myself from the age of 17.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

That's that's impressive. You really learned to be independent so early on.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

I had to, yeah, yeah. That's interesting. And then just one thing happened. I mean, you can encapsulate a bit because you wound up singing for so many amazing people. But that's when I met you. I think you were writing, but you also were still doing touring and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Doing the odds, yeah, doing the odd gig. I loved, always loved singing. I sang from the age of, I don't know, seven or something. My mum and dad sent me for guitar lessons and singing lessons. I never thought for a minute I was going to do it as a job, really at all. And it was just on a very innocent kind of, oh, I'm just gonna see, you know, if I can get a nighttime job, because my sister had got me a job in the in the airline industry, and I hated that. So I was like, okay, I'll just apply for this seven nights a week, actually six nights a week uh residency in a hotel band. And I got it. And that's what got me started. So I, you know, sang lots of covers and sort of subconsciously getting all those maladies, maladies and lyrics and stories and stuff in my inside my head in a subconscious way. Kind of later on down the line, I only realized, gosh, that had an impact on my writing and helped me with that commercial kind of those commercial ears. Ears, exactly. Exactly. Yeah, but I wound up doing a lot of session work, sort of graduating onto touring and session work and working with these amazing artists, and sort of came to a bit of a crossroads when I was in my late 20s, thinking, gosh, you know, I I don't want to just be a banking singer. I want to be singing my own songs. I had had this real feeling that songwriting was, I was meant to be a songwriter because I just loved the process so much. And I just, it was like this sacred place to go.

Writing Genie In A Bottle

SPEAKER_02 8:03

It's a wonderful story that you just came up from from nowhere and just showed up in London. I I love London. That's always been my own place to be. It's like home to me. Now you co-wrote Jeannie in a bottle, which didn't just become a hit. It really kind of shifted pop culture. I mean, I remember when I came out, you had tremendous, and it's had a tremendous resurgence with her 25-year anniversary. But also Gen Z is really interested in that Y2K stuff. It's a I don't know if you can think back and say, now when I wrote this song, I kind of knew in the room said this was it, or I mean, how how did you feel when you were writing it?

SPEAKER_01 8:43

It was the first song that I co-wrote with David Frank and Steve Kippner. We had been introduced by a friend, my friend Jody O'Connor, who lives in London, and she had just worked with them herself, and she said, because I was living in London at the time, and I'd come out to LA for a writing trip. And she said, you know, you definitely got to work with these guys. They're great. And, you know, they're really seasoned writers and experienced, you know, musicians. And, you know, Steve comes from a whole family line of uh songwriters. His dad was a songwriter, his son is a songwriter. He wrote physical for Livy Newton John. So, you know, he'd he'd written some big hits before. So it was a real pleasure to get into the room with them. And there was a real different type of chemistry between us. It was, there was this, I don't know, I can't even explain what it was, but you know what it's like writing with somebody when you go into the room for the very first time. It's kind of you know you're a little on edge because you don't know whether you're going to be on today or not, whether you're going to come up with some great ideas. David had prepared three tracks for us. So we listened to these tracks because I'm usually you're just used to writing from scratch. So this was kind of um, you know, it'd become a new thing, a relative to the three tracks, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

And of course, he was in the system. He'd started the whole funk keyboard thing for Michael Jackson. And I mean he's amazing. Yeah, amazing musician.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Yeah, uh, he played us these tree tracks and we listened, and we chose the one that ended up being Jeannie because it sounded so sort of off the wall different. It was like that one. That one sounds like a single. Let's let's write that. And we didn't write it specifically for Christina, we just wrote a song. Well, let's write the best song we can today. So we walked out of the room a few hours later with that song. I went back the following day and sang it. Steve had to go somewhere else. So David and I put it down in a day, and then I had to leave town to go to Nashville on a writing trip. They finished off the production and sent it over to Ron Fair and various other people. Ron Fair called up and said, I want this as the as Christina's first single. It was, you know, we we I think we knew that we'd written a good song. I don't know, you know, whether I can go as far to say that, oh my god, we've written a smash. You know, you don't want to jinx anything when you when you write a song. You you don't really know. It's it's in the lap of the gods, timing and and all.

SPEAKER_02 11:17

That's so true, but of course it was, you you must have known also, but deep down, wow, this is this is a really good first co-write with these guys.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Yeah. Yeah, we ended up writing quite a few, few more together.

SPEAKER_03 11:29

CPA's nice.

SPEAKER_02 11:33

It's just so it's so impactful, and it's I was looking, it's got uh billions of streams, really, isn't it? Billions? I don't know. It's over. I did look it up not long ago.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

Okay, that's yeah, that's something. That is definitely something. It is something. It's been uh it's been the gift that keeps giving, and I'm I'm so grateful for it, I have to say.

SPEAKER_02 11:52

Now you've written for voices as different as Christine Aguilera, Sinead O'Connor, Miley Cyrus, and you've also sung and collaborated with major artists from Christina and Miley to Elton John Celine Dion. When you were writing, did you hear a specific artist's voice in your head, or is there a distinctive Pam Shane sound that exists? How do you, or and how do you decide maybe to disappear into the song?

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Is there is it conscious or do you kind of Well, it really depends on the singer and and the artist who you're working with that day. You know, if you're writing to a brief, how well the artist writes. Because sometimes they're not a strong writer, and then you will get an artist who's a really strong writer. And and as a songwriter, and as the songwriter in the room, or one of the songwriters in the room, because I'm that top liner person who does the melody and lyric, you have to be that chameleon and fit into whatever it is that is needed. And and try, you know, it's it's a little bit of a uh political dance because you don't know, you don't want to push your ideas on an artist, but at the same time, you want to lead and help them articulate what it is that is authentic to them and what their story.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

It is, I mean, as a writer with a lot of young people, I know that's kind of like you you have you may have brought the concept, but you have to make them feel like it's theirs. It's theirs, exactly. Because usually they're young and they don't maybe have the sophistication to have that kind of concept. Yeah. But somehow it's if it doesn't feel to them like it's theirs, they will never use the song, right? Yeah. I think that's true. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:29

But it definitely helps, I think, when you're a singer. I mean, it's helped me being a singer in my in my songwriting career for for sure, because I write things that feel natural to sing for my voice, but obviously everyone's got a different range. And when you're writing for an artist and you haven't got them in the room, you have to do your homework and start studying what their range is, what this, what their quirks are, what, you know, stylistically, how do they what are they what do they write about? What do they like to write about? What's going on in their life right now? There's stuff that you you have to do prior to getting in the room.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

Yeah, I mean, a lot of our listeners will find this really interesting to hear that, you know, just many people that are listening and don't know that much about how one writes a song that becomes a hit, or just a song in general.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

It's like any job. Just go do your research and go in prepared. The times that I didn't go in prepared were not so great. But when you go in with an idea, I was actually talking to uh Sam Hollander, I don't know whether you know Sam.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

Oh, I know him, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:36

I mean well, but big writer. Yeah. He still sits and writes every day, whether it's for an hour or two, and comes up with lyrics one day, with melodies one day, with choruses one day. He religiously pushes himself and prepares and makes sure that he goes into a session with an idea. And I I do the same.

Songwriter Camps And Sync Strategy

SPEAKER_02 15:02

I do as well. I feel uh scared if I don't. I mean, it's like, oh no, I didn't have I canceled something recently. I had a headache and I couldn't come up with ideas. I just said I can't, I can't do this session without having ideas. We were talking about your songwriter camps, which you're where you're watching creative confidence build and also supporting the abilities of young people to get sync opportunities. And that's something you've started with Richard Harris, who's also a lovely and amazing songwriter. How do you see, have you noticed? I mean, you know, this podcast is a lot about women, and do you notice there are more women coming to those camps, maybe, than before? Or in general, do you notice a lot of women? When did the Annenberg Foundation do those? Well, it's been continuing to do them pretty much every year.

SPEAKER_01 15:48

Yeah, but it's the numbers are coming up.

SPEAKER_02 15:50

The numbers are coming up slightly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:52

We're all seeing all these different female organizations, yes, female-led organizations. It's really great to see women are are going, yes I can, yes I can. And and really going, putting their sleeves up and getting down to work. And women's audio mission for one thing, and we are moving the needle. Yeah, even the recording academy and Shea's Music, and as you know, Sona are female-led.

SPEAKER_02 16:17

Really just curious about is are you seeing more women writers coming to those camps? Or in general, you you're just finding that there are a lot of women writers coming to your camps?

SPEAKER_01 16:25

Generally, there's more women than than male. We started out in 2018 doing these camps in person, and it really was put together because we were mentoring at Durango Film TV Festival, Durango, not the Film TV Festival, the Songwriters Expo.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

Right.

SPEAKER_01 16:43

They do two a year and they're wonderful to go to to really build your community and and meet other songwriters and business people. And the Hawaii Songwriting Festival and and others that we were mentoring at and seeing a lot of songwriters presenting their work when it wasn't really ready to be presented. And we felt that there was a need to help songwriters with the craft and and to really tighten up their songs before they presented them. And so we we started a camp in 2018. We did three camps, uh, well, three or four camps before the pandemic happened. And then we were like, okay, what do we do now? So we went online and we've been helping independent songwriters. We put together sync camps, but they're done online and there's no sort of traveling expenses, hotel expenses. So we've kept the fee really, really um doable. Uh, we give anybody that's connected to a PRO, the PRO discount. They write to specific briefs. Music supervisors come on and we interview the music supervisors and we write to their briefs.

SPEAKER_02 17:58

That's terrific.

SPEAKER_01 17:59

And we've been getting some great sync placements, and um, they're all one-stop.

SPEAKER_02 18:05

All the writers to explain to everyone what one stop is if people don't know, it just means that the writer owns their publishing and the master, and that they don't have to go to various companies to get the rights cleared.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Yeah, well, we we do it through our publishing, our publishing partner, Penn Music Group, who uh you know Michael, and they do a one-stop so because there's three people on a song, it's only one clearance. So one-stop clearance, but you do own your own song. We don't take any ownership. There's a sync placement fee taken. We wanted to protect songwriters and make sure that uh they're getting a good deal, being songwriters ourselves. Yep, of course. That's a it's a very good idea.

SPEAKER_02 18:44

And I I know we're just to stay on the woman thing just for a minute, uh, but that's that's really cool that you're doing these songwriter camps. So that's mostly over Zoom, the the songwriter camp. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Yeah, we are we only do two a year. We're not we're not doing a huge, you know, it's it we do workshops, we do meet and critique workshops, we do one-on-one mentoring and these sync camps.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

Um and I think we were talking earlier about South by Southwest. Did you guys ever go and do anything there with your camps or speak there?

SPEAKER_01 19:10

No, haven't haven't to South by Southwest. I've done a panel before South by Southwest, but we have done a couple of camps for American Songwriter over the last couple of years.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

Oh, that's cool.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Um, which has been amazing in Nashville and up in the cat skills.

SONA Advocacy And Streaming Pay

SPEAKER_02 19:24

Oh, fun. Now, as a founder member of Sona, which helped pass the Music Modernization Act, you fought for songwriters' rights. Did stepping into that advocacy change how you look at your own involvement in the business in general or how you look at your own role as a songwriter?

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Absolutely. Absolutely it did. That was nearly 10 years ago now. Uh actually, it was more than 10 years ago because I think we just had the the 10-year anniversary of Sonar. Wow, it's hard to believe.

SPEAKER_02 19:53

Isn't it? Yeah, I know, because I remember I know Jack Kugel really well.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

I've I watched the whole thing kind of unfold. Yeah. It was amazing. And it was really down to the need of ne we needed to do something because we weren't sure who had our backs, and we just we just knew that our income had gone, had literally fallen off a cliff. It wasn't funny at all. But it took a while for it for us all to come out of the woodwork and go, oh, it's happening to you too. I thought it was just happening to me. Because streaming happened in such a weird way. We didn't know if it was what portion of it was mechanical, what portion of it was performance income.

SPEAKER_02 20:33

And if you didn't own the master, then you were in trouble because you weren't making very much money. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

Yeah, it's it's leveled up a bit better now, which is which is great. But it was an inc incredibly educational time for us all because we're all songwriters, we're not accountants, we're not super, some of us, I could speak for myself, maybe, not super heavy business people where we know all the different segments of the business, what the politics are, how much skin in the game we had. We we really didn't know, but I think we learned we learned a lot from all of that. We went to Washington, which was an incredible experience for me personally, and lobbied senators and sang in their rooms, and and that was prior to the Music Modernization Act. So it was nice to be a part of helping that go through, which was really amazing. But there's still so much to be done. I think we've realized we need a union, we need a songwriters union. Not that that's not they've not tried to do that before, not Sona, but other people have tried to do that before, not successfully. And that's because we don't fulfill the criteria of what we need to be to be a union, because rurals self-apployed contract. And we need healthcare. You know, songwriters have such a unique job. And who else do you know? That goes out to work day after day after day, Sarah. And puts put all the work into it, and you only ever get paid if something hits I know, it's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

And and and also songwriters are trying, and I have done it quite a few times, to get a piece of the master, because that's where the money is now, you know? And I do get some pushback, but it's like it's becoming more and more common to ask for a piece of the master. It is.

SPEAKER_01 22:29

That's a real gray area. And I think now that it's starting to level up more where the master is is worth a similar to the to the publishing. Yeah, I was at the AIMP over over Grammy week. David Israelite was saying that it's really starting to level up now, which is good news, but still so much for us to do. And, you know, songwriters, it is like herding cats. We're off in our different directions. We're there's all these different songwriter organizations. If there was one sort of global songwriter organization where we could all be that one big voice, you know, we are the foundation of the music industry. Well, you got nothing without a song. And I don't think we realize, yeah, we do realize our own powers. So songwriters, don't sit on the fence. This is your this is your life and this is your job if you want it to continue for many generations and for your kids to earn money, then you know we have to do something now, especially with AI coming in.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

We'll have to think of a good title, Songwriters of the World, or I don't know. Think of some uh union name. It's a big issue. I mean, I don't it's almost impossible to earn unless you're really one of the top writers to earn a liverable wage. Like naturally, it's I don't know how these well, they don't really survive. Everyone's got a job as a barrister or something, where they're getting a draw from their publisher on a monthly basis.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

You have to have a second job. You have to have a second job as a songwriter unless someone else is supporting you.

Branding, Visibility, And Song Power

SPEAKER_02 24:02

Yes, that's that helps. Now you lived through eras where mystery sold records, and now we're in a place where visibility sells everything. It's the social media and everything. So in your opinion, and that's just an opinion, do you think songs lose or gain power when the creator becomes part of the brand? In this kind of social media world, anyway.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Well, when you say creator, do you mean the artist? I I do actually mean the artist, yeah. Because the songwriter doesn't have Right, it doesn't have visibility.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Not really. But we're working on that. We're working on that. I think, yeah, I think it creates power. I love all these different marketing campaigns and branding opportunities for artists that you've seen all the different ads, uh, the advertising and the branding. I think it does strengthen a song and its life. So I'm all for that. And I saw when Jeannie in a bottle came out, I saw how that song was changing fashion and little girls and dolls, and and that that kind of blew me away. Uh, it still does. And I started thinking differently as a songwriter. I actually started thinking, oh, okay, think of a brand, not necessarily for advertising necessarily, but thinking in terms of an artist and what their ideal brand would be and what that would look like in a song. So I started creating songs in that kind of way, which was a fun in that visual, because I love I love visuals, loved writing uh film.

Eva Duo And A Song Performance

SPEAKER_02 25:42

And you've done a bit of that. Now you're back in the studio with your duo, Eva or Eva? Eva. Eva Eva. Eva, okay.

SPEAKER_01 25:49

Just tell me a little bit about that. I met Sarah at the Hawaii Songwriting Festival, and uh she lives in Hawaii, she's American. And um, we just sort of she she was actually, her and her husband accompanied me because I had to get up and sing Jeannie and a couple of my songs. And we became fast friends. I went back several times over the years, and we just became good friends. And I said to her, hey, why don't we write a song to sing next year at the Hawaii songwriting festival if I get an invited back? And so we did, and that was one of the songs that we released, I Forgive You, which is a song about self-forgiveness. Because that song was Acapella, we started going in that direction. It was just we're really following our feet. And we're just about to release our fourth song. It's a cover of the Tears for Fears song Woman in Chains, in time for Women's History Month. And it's the only cover we've done so far. We don't have many followers, and you know, if anyone's listening, please, please follow us on our socials and on Spotify.

SPEAKER_02 26:58

And people are definitely listening.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

And uh tell me which song I'd like to play, one of the songs. Tell me which song you'd like me to play. I forgive you, maybe. It was that was our first song together. I forgive you, Eva.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

For all the grave untruth. For all the harm you can undo those ruthless words we sometimes choose for thinking you have to be perfect. Love you don't deserve it, for never really believe you were worth it. I forgive you. I forgive you 'cause it's way too healthy to hold on to. I forgive you for all this life.

SPEAKER_02 28:33

So it sounds great. I can really see wanting to get back there as a singer again. That makes perfect sense, you know, because it's been such a long time for that it's as far as I know, you haven't really been featuring yourself. I never featured. Never featured myself.

SPEAKER_01 28:49

Not really. I mean, I think I did uh years ago did an album for a Japanese album that I worked on, but really never released songs. And I had tried to get a deal in the 90s. Celine Dion was pretty big, and actually I sang on one of her songs. They were signing Young Girls then, they were signing 15-year-olds, Billy Piper, and TB Acts, and AR really didn't have any vision for somebody in their late 20s. So I was like, okay, I'll just be a songwriter. That's fine. Could still sing and and and contribute to my demos. But I found the whole recently the the we're consciousness, we're we're human beings, and vibration is very healing to our bodies. And singing for me has been a very healing and cathartic experience. Sort of falling in love with it again. Um so enjoying working with Sarah on our project.

SPEAKER_02 29:51

I wanted to ask a quirky question. Just Gene Bottle is getting the second life. Which of your other songs, if you think back to some that maybe were album cuts that you felt maybe should have been given more attention, is there any song that you particularly feel was overlooked or that you wish was heard more?

SPEAKER_01 30:11

There was one, actually. There was the song that David, Steve, and I wrote. So the same team that wrote Jeannie. Song called The Poet. That was written around the same time, maybe a couple of years later, because Jeannie was our first song together, and we continued to work together a year after Jeannie was at number one. We had a number two with a girl band called Dream. So that was an amazing experience to have two songs with them. And so we continued working together and we wrote this song called The Poet, which it felt really special to all of us, and it was cut a couple times. Liberty X, which was a girl group, you probably remember them, Sarah in the UK, they cut it. Uh Maria Lawson singer, she cut it. And I think there was another Paulini or somebody like that, cut the song. But you know how timing is a is a real thing. And I it just don't think all the stars were in alignment for any of those artists with that song. I still believe that song could be a hit, especially now with the resurgence of the 90s stuff. Yeah. So you should talk to your publisher. Let's pull it out of hiding.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

Actually, it's a great idea. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. That's uh good. Let's do that. And is there anything I I didn't ask or you anything you wish we talked about that we have time to do?

Mentoring Advice And Closing Thanks

SPEAKER_01 31:40

I really enjoyed being a mentor, uh sort of moving into mentoring. I obviously still write and sing and perform and love that part, but I also equally love mentoring next generation of songwriters and people coming up. It's a ti it's a different business to what it was when when you and I got into it. Wish we had some mentors.

SPEAKER_02 32:04

Well, at least I wish I did for you. I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 32:06

I well, my publishers kind of were my mentors, but I didn't really have a creative mentor that really gave me those. I guess my co-writers, people that I wrote with, would give creative input into songs and stuff. But it's important. It's important to really, if you want to do this in your life and and to be in this industry, to work really, really hard and to polish your skills and to just get better and better and get your head down and and keep doing it. Just keep doing it. Do it over and over and over and over again. Practice does make perfect. You've got to have a real strong willpower to continue to do it, but probably uh have to get another job to support yourself as well at the same time. It's an it's an amazing job to do, career to do. I've loved every single minute of being a songwriter. It's one of the most healing, it's my therapy. Saved me a lot on therapy because I songwrite, it's how I express myself to the world. And I want that to continue for other people that art is important. We are the ones who change the world with our art. Just keep going at it. If you believe in yourself, and you have to believe in yourself first.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

And you've obviously put so much time and energy into something, and your work is beautiful. And we did work together years ago, but I remember it very well, and it was definitely a great experience. And you're you're a wonderful example of a professional songwriter who's also giving back. So thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

Oh, thanks, Sarah. It's such a pleasure to reconnect with you and to chat with you. And if you're a woman out there that is really finding it difficult being a music creator, just you know, find your find your people and find those mentors that really support you. We're here. Right.

SPEAKER_02 34:03

We're here or or reach out to us. I mean, can they reach out to you? Can should I put your email or your there's something you should put in the okay?

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Yeah. Info at songwritercants.com. Yeah, you can find me there. We all we do a monthly meet and critique workshop where you can bring a song and we can help you tighten it up and we do one to one-to-one mentoring too.

SPEAKER_02 34:23

Well, thank you so much, Pam. I really appreciated you coming on and keep you posted on when it's going to air.

Sponsor Thanks And Final Outro

SPEAKER_01 34:28

Thanks, Sarah. Lots of love to you.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

I'd like to thank today's sponsor, Herd City, the premier audio post-production company servicing the advertising, motion picture, and television industries right here in NYC. I'd also like to thank Antello, aka X O N, for seeing the She Creates Noise theme that I wrote. Thanks for listening to She Creates Noise. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, rate, and share. I want to thank the team here Blair Riley, Yelena Stevanovich, Emily Wilson, and the Master of Engineering and Grammy winning Cooper Anderson. We'll see you next time.